a new one of mine...

Half truth

Winter upon us. Yet
He returns from his month
in a hut, from his African mistress
whose fan breathes its breathless
artifice of wind along the milky whiteness
of his sleep, into
the dark-curtained rooms of a
Spanish lover.
Soon he will be off again, this time toward
east-lying plains
Where his girls will folk-dance him into the night
And offer him red wine, sausages, morning rides
Into the hills.
Daddy still pays for his plane tickets.
Women still believe his stories.
History proceeds at a breakneck pace
Yet sometimes so little changes:
Our foolishness, our deep-churning need
For the tiniest element, the smallest blue flame
sheltered for a second from the wind.